Magdalene Odundo

For some strange reason, Nigerian Art schools look down on ceramics and call them "artisans" rather than artists. Which is really sad, as it's part of our History. So I keep looking for quality terracotta work and keep finding cheap stuff.

Then I discovered Kenyan Magdalene. A. N. Odundo.

Notice now the protrusions on this vase look like a spinal cord. Kai! This lady has a strong faithful fan in me. Most of her pottery follow curves of a human body.

Madgalene (I love her name!) was born in Nairobi and received her early education in both India and Kenya. She moved to England in 1971 to continue her training in graphic art. In 1974-1975, she visited Nigeria and Kenya to study traditional hand-built pottery techniques. She also traveled to New Mexico to observe the making of blackware vessels.

She's an OBE of the British Empire and Magdalene should be an inspiration to any female artist, especially those who want to be pottery sculptors: You are artists, finished. No less.

What's in a stick of charcoal, really?

I am so, so sorry for disappearing on y'all. So much has happened since we last talked, and I will be sharing it with you from now on.

Blogging is hard work. Almost as hard as Astro Nuclear Physics. Truly. You've never read up on it, so don't argue with me. I've never read up on it either.

Sooooo.....

Charcoal. Wonderful to cook Jollof rice on. Excellent to grill Suya to the right taste level. Even better to draw with.

KwangHo Shin

Alex Tzavaras

Kelvin Okafor

Kathe Kollwitz

These are lovely examples of the beauty and flow and life of charcoal (seriously I prefer them to most oil paintings). I got some recently and decided to put them to the test.

Inscribe charcoal sticks and some random Chinese set

 

 

 

 

 

 

Derwent charcoal pencils

I got the Inscribe set and Derwent pencils from AB Artworld and the Chinese sticks from some art store, all stores are located in Ojuelegba.

I have shown how dark each gets, and how soft each brand is. IMHO, none is bad (THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF CHARCOAL, PEOPLE!), they just make different marks, it's upto you to use it as you feel. I will say that pencils give you more control when drawing and are less messy but sticks give you that wonderful flow of movement.

Now, if you will all excuse me, I'll go back to cooking jollof, errrr.....I mean drawing, with Charcoal.

Laters.

Africans in Western Art

Hello everyone,

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while, working on a lot of stuff is no excuse to neglect my blog.

Did you know Africans were always painted in Western Art? Of course you didn't, neither did I. But this is very true, so many popular artists from the 16th century painted them, including Rembrandt and Carracci. Some of the Africans painted were educated, belonging-to-the-elite Africans (like the powerful Medici family, who had mixed race members who ruled states in Italy and Spain and contributed to most of the currently ruling European acristocracy) to well....slaves and "savages from the new world".

Watch Wallace Ejoh execute a quick oil painting.

Hello everyone.
How are you? I'm involved in some new projects, so have been quite lazy blogging. Ma binu.

Meet Mr. Wallace Ejoh, a master of live drawing and painting (seriously, it's to beg him to teach me live portrait painting, a skill for only the most gangster of champions. Live portrait painting is like Arsenal winning EPL, UEFA cup, Champions League, not impossible, but haaarrrrrddddd).

Mr. Ejoh used Winsor and Newton paints, which can be bought from AB Artworld, in Surulere and I know there's a store on Awolowo way. I'll post my humble pastel sketch, it's my first, so go easy, art critics.

Anatomy of a Painting

I thought I would share with you guys how I developed one of my most recent paintings.

Below is my setup, I was trying to get a good lighting position. In the foreground is my pastel box, filled with soft pastels and a few hard pastel sticks. Yep, I know it looks crazy, blame it on no space, lol.

That's my initial sketch, of the final arrangement. I wanted to know how the highlights and shadows would look. I am working on toned Winsor and Newton paper.

There's much of the painting done. It still needs a few tweaks, but I like it. 

What do you think? It's part of my series exploring my womanhood and art.

Tola Wewe: A beautiful mind

Tola Wewe is an amazing artist. He's exhibited internationally in several countries including Nigeria, USA, Germany and France. He started out as a cartoonist ( cartoonists have a special place in my heart).

"Pattern of Peace II", acrylic on canvas

"Untitled" oil on canvas

"Waiting"

"Hope Rising"

He's amazing, and I love his use of colour. Tola Wewe is one of the founding members of the Ona movement, a yoruba-based art movement. I will do more research on him, and hopefully, we may get an interview.

Antique Beauty

Hello.

Gosh, it's been a while. I've been busy and not prioritizing properly. And I do sincerely apologise. Merry Christmas, too.

In today's Art world, we talk about contemporary artists, we drop names of exhibitions we've attended, glibly. But we, Nigerians, we do something very, very wrong.

We never look back.

100 year old Olowe statue, yoruba tribe

60 year old Yoruba warrior and horse statue

65-70 year old mirror statue, Igalla tribe

80 year old Igbo-Ukwu brass vase

Before you cry "oh the fetishness of it all!", please remember you avidly watched tv shows and movies about mythological greek deities (yep, you paid money to watch an Anglicised version of Sango, in a red cape, fall in love with a human woman, defeat his half brother, ad save the world with other superheros). We know sooo much about Zeus, and are not overly worried Christmas Day used to be a pagan celebration the Catholic church appropriated. So, let's respect those who believed in other religions, because you're dreaming of going to Egypt to one day see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Amirite?

I'm glad to say some of these came home with me, and what I learnt about their history and the people who made them came along too, and I will pass that information to my children's children, so they know they are not lost.

"...A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother..." 

John Henrike Clarke


Ye me ike.